Simplified Version of Choice C: Appropriating Outrage
Address the claim that the 1976 movie Network foreshadows the kind of commodification of performative outrage and its toxic societal effects evident in the documentary The Social Network.
Present 7 ways the 1976 movie Network foreshadows the kind of commodification of performative outrage and its toxic societal effects evident in the documentary The Social Network.
ChatGPT
Certainly, both "Network" (1976) and "The Social Network" (2010) offer poignant reflections on the commodification of outrage and its detrimental impacts on society, albeit in different contexts. Here are seven ways the former foreshadows the latter:
- Exploitation of Emotion: In "Network," the character Howard Beale becomes a sensation when he expresses his raw emotions on television. Similarly, "The Social Network" portrays Mark Zuckerberg exploiting the emotional vulnerabilities of his peers to create a social network. Both instances highlight how genuine emotions are manipulated for profit.
- Sensationalism in Media: "Network" criticizes the sensationalism and commodification of news, showcasing how networks prioritize ratings over journalistic integrity. Similarly, "The Social Network" portrays the sensationalized portrayal of events surrounding the creation of Facebook, emphasizing how media narratives can distort truth for entertainment value.
- Voyeuristic Entertainment: Both films depict audiences' voyeuristic tendencies towards others' personal lives. In "Network," viewers are drawn to Howard Beale's breakdowns, while in "The Social Network," audiences are fascinated by the drama and conflicts among the characters involved in the creation of Facebook.
- Manipulation of Public Opinion: "Network" highlights the manipulation of public opinion by media corporations, showcasing how narratives are crafted to sway public sentiment. Similarly, "The Social Network" depicts how social media platforms can shape public discourse and influence opinions through curated content and algorithms.
- Monetization of Controversy: Both films explore how controversy and conflict can be monetized. In "Network," the network exploits Howard Beale's controversial rants for profit, while in "The Social Network," Zuckerberg and his associates capitalize on the controversy surrounding the creation of Facebook to propel their success.
- Erosion of Authenticity: "Network" portrays the erosion of authenticity in media, as sensationalism and entertainment value overshadow truth and integrity. Similarly, "The Social Network" highlights how authenticity is sacrificed in the pursuit of success and recognition in the digital age.
- Alienation and Isolation: Both films depict the alienation and isolation that can result from the commodification of outrage and the pursuit of success. In "Network," characters become increasingly disconnected from reality, while in "The Social Network," characters experience strained relationships and interpersonal conflicts as a result of their ambitions.
In essence, "Network" serves as a precursor to the themes explored in "The Social Network," offering a prescient commentary on the commodification of outrage and its toxic societal effects.
McMahon’s Thesis for Choice A:
On one hand, I embrace Gustavo Arellano’s claim that Mexican food’s greatness emerges from cultural synthesis, evolution, innovation, local ingredients, connection to place, and the spirit of sharing food as a form of love and creativity that must be honored. On the other hand, I reject Arellano’s notion that any people--white or otherwise--get the green light to commit what I call the Taco-Bellification of Mexican food, which is a desecration and abomination--taking the beauty and history of Mexican culture and commercializing it by replacing authenticity and transcendent foods with anodyne, bland, soulless, bandaged-together cookery deceptively marketed as “Mexican cuisine.”
Outline for the Above:
Paragraph 1: I would summarize Arellano’s essay.
Paragraph 2: I would use the above thesis statement.
Paragraphs 3-5: I would analyze the Netflix Ugly Delicious Taco episode to support my claim that Mexican food is not a fixed category but something that evolves with culture.
Paragraphs 6-8: I would refute the notion that the Taco-Bellification of Mexican food is okay by pointing out that commercialization of real food insults culture, replaces delicious real food with fake repulsive food, and influences culture for the worst.
Paragraph 9, my conclusion, would be a powerful, emotional restatement of my thesis.
Choice A
For choice A, our fourth essay will be a 1,200-word argumentative essay that defends, refutes, or complicates food and culture writer Gustavo Arellano’s claim in his essay “Let White People Appropriate Mexican Food” and elsewhere that in the realm of food, especially Mexican food, we must step away from the Cult of Authenticity and embrace the idea that the greatness of Mexican food is related to its constant evolution from stealing, borrowing, synthesizing, and even culturally appropriating from one ethnic culture to another and that cuisines that fail to evolve lack relevance and vitality.
Sample Outline:
Paragraph 1: Summarize the main ideas in the article by Gustavo Arellano titled “Let White People Appropriate Mexican Food.” Or summarize the main ideas in the YouTube video “Cultural Appropriation Tastes Damn Good.”
Paragraph 2: Then transition to an argumentative claim in which you show support or repudiation of Arellano’s main ideas.
Paragraphs 3-6 would be your supporting paragraphs.
Paragraphs 7 and 8 would be your counterargument-rebuttal.
Paragraph 9 would be a powerful restatement of your thesis, which is your conclusion.
Your last page would be your Works Cited page in MLA format and a minimum of 4 sources.
Choice A Building Block 1
The Assignment: Write 2 Paragraphs:
Write 2 paragraphs, an Introductory Paragraph and an Argumentative Thesis Paragraph.
Instructions for Introductory Paragraph
I recommend one of two approaches for your introductory paragraph.
Method #1: Summarize the main ideas in the article by Gustavo Arellano titled “Let White People Appropriate Mexican Food.”
Method #2 Summarize the main ideas in the YouTube video “Cultural Appropriation Tastes Damn Good.”
Instructions for Argumentative Thesis Paragraph
Then transition to an argumentative claim in which you show support or repudiation of Arellano’s main ideas.
While I take offense at the inflated prices of some of these appropriation restaurants and the lack of credit given to the original sources, I agree with GA’s claim that _______ because ________, ______________, ________________, and _______________________.
Counterarguments that challenge Gustavo Arellano’s claim that we should reject the Cult of Authenticity
- Plagiarism Argument: When we steal intellectual or creative property, there should be consequences. We call this type of stealing plagiarism. Students who commit plagiarism get into big trouble. Shouldn’t cooks who steal creatively and in effect commit culinary plagiarism be subject to some kind of penalties? Should not these chefs who engage in stealing or cultural appropriation at the very least be required to ascribe credit to their sources? Should not these chefs who commit acts of culinary plagiarism at least be required to give a portion of their profits to the areas they stole from?
- Moral Argument: Cultural appropriation, the kind where privileged people go to a small town in the United States, Mexico or Latin America and then steal recipes and cooking methods, offends our common sense of morality, fairness, honesty, and justice. When Gustavo Arellano says, “Everybody steals,” and that’s just the “Darwinian” way in the hyper-competitive restaurant industry, could we not accuse Arellano of using a “two rights make a wrong fallacy”? This fallacy is commonly referred to as argumentum ad populum or appeal to the majority fallacy. In other words, just because the majority engage in immoral behavior doesn't make that behavior right.
- Quality Control or “Wannabes” Argument: Sure, Gustavo Arellano points out all these great examples of cultural appropriation, but those examples don’t diminish the exponential growth of phony Mexican restaurants that serve the crassest, disgusting, abominable “Mexican food” imaginable. Violating the Cult of Authenticity comes with a steep price: A bunch of wannabes steal some recipes and think they know how to make Mexican food when in fact what they are serving is an insult to Mexican food and to Mexican culture.
- Grandmother argument: A student told me he had some very mediocre Molcajete at an expensive Mexican restaurant. He told me, “When I visit my grandmother in Guatemala, she makes me Molcajete that blows all the other ones away. I can’t get excited paying premium dollar for a bunch of sad food that goes under the name of ‘Mexican food.’” What this student is saying essentially is that the tradition, experience, and love his grandmother puts in her homemade Molcajete cannot be compared to the vastly inferior substitutes. Grandmother’s cooking, in other words, is an argument for authenticity.
Four Weaknesses in Gustavo Arellano's Argument
One. Arellano doesn't address food plagiarism. For example, it is indefensible to take the original food, give it a new name, and claim it as yours as in the notorious case of Gracie Norton who promotes "her spa water" when in fact the water is aqua fresca.
Two. Not all stealing is equal. If John quits the very successful Restaurant Y and gets a new job at the less successful Restaurant Z that Y uses cumin and ghost chilies in their enchilada sauce, then the owner of Z is going to “steal” the recipe. This type of “stealing” happens all the time. But let us not equate this type of stealing with a white lady named Gracie Norton taking aqua fresca and promoting it as her own “spa water.” That is racial plagiarism, and it is morally repulsive and morally indefensible.
Three. Arellano doesn't address the white-washing effect: taking delicious meals and watering them down into soulless bland plates that insult the original dish. Oftentimes a white or non-white restaurant owner takes ethnic cuisine and calculates that since his largely white customer base wants ethnic but doesn’t really want ethnic. These white customers want the excitement of saying, “Guys, we’re going to an ethnic restaurant,” but they don’t really want the true ethnic food experience. They want some watered-down crap that they call ethnic but in reality is the same tasteless pablum that defines their infantile tastebuds. "Tourism food" ruins and insults Mexican food. But here's the rub: Fake tourism food makes money.
This type of cultural appropriation incurs my loathing and abject contempt, but I don’t protest. I merely speak with my dollars. You will never see me a hundred feet from a phony ethnic cuisine restaurant.
This is perhaps my biggest critique of Gustavo Arellano’s argument. Most of his argument I agree with, but object to his failure to address the white-washing of ethnic food and turning it into tasteless, insipid baby food.
An Argument in Favor of Arellano: The Wow Factor
Your job as a restaurant owner is to make food that has the Wow Factor. You will experiment, innovate, and rely on time-tested traditional recipes, some “authentic” and some that are modifications, but regardless of what you do, you must make food that has the Wow Factor, that captures people’s hearts, that hijacks people’s brains, and that makes people addicted to your food. That is your job.
***
Highlights from Gustavo Arellano’s Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America
The Cosmic Burrito
According to food writer and Los Angeles Times culture critic Gustavo Arellano, Mexican food has been assimilated and celebrated in the United States for 125 years. Tacos and burritos are America’s comfort food.
The celebration of Mexican food in America has caused a worldwide appetite for Mexican food, from Dubai to Australia, which has its own Taco Bell, called Taco Bill’s, which specializes in fish tacos.
Arellano observes that for over 100 years, many Americans who are anti-Mexican in their prejudices are unaware of the contradiction between their racism and their undying love of Mexican food. They compartmentalize, loving the food yet inexplicably disliking the people who make it, turning Mexicans into negative stereotypes while having a relentless desire for Mexican food.
Tortillas are the preferred food of NASA astronauts, so there is now the “Cosmic Burrito” and variations of Mexican food pop up all over America, including the muchaco, a taco made with ground beef and pita bread at the Taco Bueno restaurant chain.
Hot Cocoa Comes from Mexico
Arellano observes that traditional desserts made with cocoa and vanilla to make chocolate and vanilla desserts, including hot cocoa, come from 1700s Mexico when the Virgin Mary statues in the cathedrals had offerings of various chocolate and vanilla desserts. This vanilla was cultivated to perfection and copied by the Europeans in Pico de Orizaba, a vanilla region in Veracruz, which is in eastern Mexico.
As early as the 1500s, Spanish conquerors fell in love with Mexican foods made with corn or maize, which were made into various forms of masa cornmeal.
The Spaniards become obsessed with tortillas and tamales, the latter being a convenience food perfect for traveling with.
The Spanish invader Cortes demanded Mexican food in his court, and according to Arellano, this is the first documented case of cultural appropriation.
Moreover, the Spaniards introduced the Mexicans to wheat flour, which brought flour tortillas to the Mexican diet.
This is our first known case of fusion.
Chile Con Carne (soon to become Chili)
Arrellano observes that the first chili made with hot peppers and meat was around 1870 in the San Antonio region, not Texas, but pre-Texas: Tejas.
Chile became so popular that by the 1880s, you could already find it advertised in Hawaii and Washington D.C.
The world doesn’t understand how good Mexican food is. They take it for granted. This is one of Arellano’s main points.
Now Chile Con Carne is just “Chili.”
Tamalero
Tamales started to spread throughout America in the 1890s and were sold by European, Indian, and Arab immigrants who were often called “Mexicans.” These immigrants who sold the tamales on the streets were called Tamaleros, AKA “The Hot Tamale Man.”
They became part of American popular culture and folklore.
World Domination of the Taco in the 1950s
As big as tamales and chili were for about 70 years, they would be replaced by the world-dominating taco starting in the 1950s.
Arellano contributes this growth to a place in Orange County called Irvine, the birth of Taco Bell, founded by Glen Bell.
We now have many tacos including:
- The soft-shell taco
- The taco dorado (hard shell)
- The taquito (flautas)
Tacos have exploded all over the world, including Sweden, Japan, and South Africa.
Birthplace of the American Taco and the Gateway Drug Argument
While Glen Bell popularized the taco, the birthplace of the American taco comes from downtown Los Angeles on Olvera Street, a tiny taco stand called Cielito Lindo, circa 1931.
The second place is in San Bernardino, the Mitla Cafe, established in 1937. The restaurant served hard-shell tacos packed with beef and shredded cheese: taco dorado con carne molida.
Glen Bell noticed the popularity of Mexican food among the white consumer base in the San Bernardino area, and he copied Mitla Cafe when he started various taco ventures before settling on Taco Bell.
The owners of Mitla Cafe and Gustavo Arellano defend Taco Bell with its phony “Mexican food” because it’s the “gateway drug” to real Mexican food.
We can call this the Gateway Drug Argument for your essay.
Challenges to Authenticity
In his book, Taco USA, Arellano tackles some challenges to the idea of authenticity in Mexican food:
- Since the 1980s, many white chefs have become Mexican food “experts,” writing cookbooks, opening Mexican restaurants, and having TV shows featuring Mexican food.
- There was a type of food from New Mexico called “Southwestern Cuisine,” which could often be pretentious “gourmet” dishes with some loose connection to Mexican food. Other times, the food is very good, featuring local ingredients like hatch chilies. The enduring food from Southwestern Cuisine is the breakfast burrito. The craze started to die in the 1990s.
- Tex-Mex, a fusion that since the 1930s features fajitas and chili has been criticized as being inauthentic, “the lowest common denominator of Mexican food.” However, the actual term Tex-Mex wasn’t coined until the 1960s.
The Great Burrito Rivalry
Gustavo Arellano adores the legendary Manuel’s Special at Manuel’s El Tepeyac Cafe in Boyle Heights.
He compares the burrito to an encounter with God. The burrito is 5 pounds and filled with grilled chicken, carne asada, machaca, beans, rice, guacamole, and sour cream.
The rival to Los Angeles for burritos is San Francisco, the Mission District, a place called “El Faro,” the Lighthouse. These are called Mission Style burritos.
“Tracing the delicious history of San Francisco’s mission style burrito”
“Why are Restaurant Burritos Better Than Homemade?”
Holy Grail Mexican Food Destinations
- Arellano says his favorite burrito is the chile relleno burrito at Lucy’s Drive-In on Pico Blvd and La Brea in Los Angeles.
- His favorite tamales are at Pasquale’s Tamales, a trailer in Helena, Arkansa, owned by a third-generation Sicilian family.
- His favorite lamb chicharrones are Angelina’s in Espanola, New Mexico.
- He loves the Taco Acorazado (Battleship) at Alebrije’s Grill in Santa Ana, CA. He says the tortillas alone are a miracle.
Not All Cultural Appropriation Is Alike: To Agree Or Not to Agree with Gustavo Arellano
The college students in my critical thinking class and I live in Los Angeles where some of the best food in the world is in our very backyards. I don’t want my students or me to take this for granted. I want us to do a deep dive into the Los Angeles food world, particularly Mexican food, the most popular cuisine in the world. So for our final essay assignment, we read Gustavo Arellano’s article “Let White People Appropriate Mexican Food--Mexicans Do It to Ourselves All the Time” and we write an essay that supports or refutes Arellano’s defense of cultural appropriation.
Arellano defends cultural appropriation by explaining three things. One, that since the beginning of time, restaurant owners have copied their competition; two, social justice warriors aren’t helping anyone when they patronize Mexicans by painting them as helpless victims when in fact Mexicans steal in the food industry just like everyone else; and three, what some might call appropriation or stealing can be in fact the healthy human impulse for cross-cultural pollination, evidenced by the fact that many of Mexico’s most famous regional dishes incorporate the food and ingredients from Spain, France, and the Middle East.
Arellano’s argument forces us to question the very idea of authenticity. What is authenticity? In the context of Mexican food, authenticity is the traditions of regional Mexican cooking that bring labor-intensive cooking techniques, geographical richness, and time-tested rituals to produce some of the best food in the world. But authenticity is more than food. It is family and culture. I urge you to watch The Taco Chronicles on Netflix. When you see families in different parts of Mexico making carnitas, canasta, asada, pastor, barbacoa, guisado, suadero, cochinita, cabrito, birria, and pescado, you will find that the geography and family traditions make these dishes authentic. But just as importantly, these foods are so good that they are a miracle from God. Look at the love the community lavishes on the local taquero, the man selling tacos on the street corner. He is bringing love to the city, and he is appreciated for it. Look at the entire communities gathering together to make these authentic dishes and you will see that food is rooted in family and culture. What is most beautiful about this notion of authenticity is the expression of love for others by bringing them the food of the gods. There is a reason in Mexico why the taco is called madre.
When we watch The Taco Chronicles, the sense of community combined with the making of the best food in the world wins our hearts and our stomachs. Any notion of violating this authenticity rightfully angers us and we are disinclined to agree with Arellano’s support of cultural appropriation. However, if you read Arellano’s book Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, you will get more context for Arellano’s defense of cultural appropriation. Arellano would never want us to violate the authentic regional traditions of Mexican cooking. Instead, he is arguing that the splendor of regional Mexican cooking spread to America by bringing food that is both desirable and affordable and that some, not all, of the magic of authentic Mexican cuisine became accessible to the American masses. Moreover, this Mexican food changed American culture for the better. Full-flavored Mexican food replaced the tasteless pablum of “American” food. Americans speak with their money and they spend so much money on Mexican food that they have made a statement that they want Mexican food in their culture.
Is Gustavo Arellano defending all forms of cultural appropriation? Clearly not. If you read his articles and watch the Netflix series Ugly Delicious, “Tacos,” you will see that Arellano has contempt for “soulless” Mexican food, “Mexican” food chains that bastardize good-tasting Mexican food, food chains that disconnect the food they sell from the workers and from the Mexican culture; you will also see that Arellano has a healthy contempt for white-washed tourist food--phony overpriced Mexican food that has no spice and has been altered to appeal to the most infantile tastebuds. These counterfeit “Mexican” restaurants aren’t serving Mexican food at all. Rather, they are shamelessly serving overpriced tasteless codswallop. They are an abomination of Mexican food and the very idea of cross-cultural pollination.
However, there are defensible iterations of cultural appropriation. Stealing recipes from Mexico and elsewhere and bringing affordable street food to America doesn’t hurt anyone and in fact brings the nectar of the gods to more people for affordable prices. Recipes are stolen all the time. Just don’t take aqua fresca and call it “spa water” on your Tiktok channel, as Gracie Norton did, which is a form of racial plagiarism.
Some will argue that if some white ladies from Portland go to Mexico and steal taco recipes from grandmothers in Mexico City, those grandmothers are entitled to a cut of the action. But in reality, millions of recipes are stolen every day in the restaurant industry and any kind of compensation through accurate and detailed accounting is an impossibility.
Another defense of Gustavo Arellano’s claim that cultural appropriation is a good thing can be found in Netflix’s Chef’s Table Pizza series. Specifically, there are two chefs, Chris Bianco and Ann Kim, who break the rules of tradition to show that there is a place for creativity and improvisation in making superior pizza that violates notions of tradition and authenticity. In fact, Italian pizza experts have visited Chris Bianco’s Pizzeria Bianco in Pheonix, Arizona, and have proclaimed that his pizza is superior to the traditional pizzas of Italy. In the case of Ann Kim, she puts kimchi on her pizza and serves Korean mung bean pancakes and her restaurant Pizzeria Lola is so famous that to meet demand, she opened three other restaurants: Hello Pizza, Young Joni, and Sook & Mimi. Incidentally, her most recent restaurant Sook & Mimi features handmade tortillas made in the tradition of Mexico.
When we see successful restauranters such as Chris Bianco and Ann Kim make delicious food that is based on both authenticity and creativity, we see that making authentic food, or not, is not an either/or proposition. It is possible to do both. Again, this notion of combining authenticity with cultural cross-pollination supports Arellano’s defense of cultural appropriation.
Clearly, not all forms of cultural appropriation are alike. Some types are an abomination. Others are a celebration. The purpose of this assignment is to use our critical thinking skills to distinguish the good from the bad and to find nuance, shades of gray, and complexity.
Just as the best tacos have a complexity of flavors, the best essays have a complexity of ideas.
***
Sample Theses That Refute and Defend Gustavo Arellano’s Argument
Refutation
Gustavo Arellano is a prestigious, beloved Los Angeles culture writer. Unfortunately, his argument that attempts to ease the collective white conscience to steal Mexican food is a sad, unconvincing affair. His argument is crippled with egregious moral, legal, and logical fallacies. He knows all too well that American history is rife with white people exploiting Mexicans’ hard work and ingenuity. To defend whites because “everyone steals” is a childish remark that fails basic moral teachings, specifically the infantile notion that two wrongs make a right. Second, if Arellano wants us to take him seriously, he must give us a more narrow definition of cultural appropriation. There is no moral equivalence between a Salvadorean husband respectfully learning the finer points of making Jahuacatas from his wife who hails from Michoacan and the white El Torito manager who hires a Mexican worker, steals the worker’s recipes over a period of two months, and then unceremoniously fires the worker. A third most regrettable error on Arellano’s part is how he conveniently ignores the atrocious fact that the majority of white stealing of Mexican food is done in the cynical service of making money by white-washing and in effect destroying delicious food to make it palatable for philistines, tourists, and other types of phony people who fancy deluding themselves into “going out and getting some ethnic food.” The bad scenarios described above are more than just bad; they are abominations of the tastebuds and the soul, and for Arellano to omit these abominations from his argument is a form of intellectual dishonesty for which I cannot forgive.
Defense
I feel bad for the above writer who has morally excoriated Gustavo Arellano for his supposed moral failings. This writer’s spiritual purity and moral self-righteousness have blinded him from the gustatory pleasures that result from Arellano’s “free-stealing” philosophy. By “free-stealing,” I refer to a degree of healthy chaos that exists in the food industry. Recipes are flying from one town to another; variations are infinite based on quirks, available food, cross-cultural pollination, and a synthesis of cooking techniques from the many cultures that inevitably converge in great cosmopolitan cities such as Los Angeles. Moreover, the relevance of Mexican cooking makes it the most popular, fastest-growing cuisine in the world. Contrary to the above passage which attempts to put a big stink on Gustavo Arellano and which would have us believe that Mexican food is pure, sacrosanct, and unchanging, real Mexican food is constantly evolving through ruthless stealing, borrowing, mutations, and respectful homages to its sacred origins. Thank God, Gustavo Arellano acknowledges the vibrancy of Mexican cooking and its complicated, sometimes morally questionable origins, for finally, a food writer has exposed the truth about the wonders of Mexican food. The above writer, on the other hand, gets a medal for moral self-righteousness but loses points for being a boring, propaganda writer for the Cult of Authenticity.
Refutation
Gustavo Arellano is gung-ho about white people stealing from Mexicans for three reasons. One, since Mexicans steal, everyone else should be able to. Two, stealing Mexican food is great for popularizing Mexican food throughout the world. Three, dishing up substandard debased Mexican food is a great “gateway drug” to getting people hooked on real Mexican food. All three of his reasons are so ludicrous and asinine as to strain credulity. For one, that Mexicans interacted with other cultures, some who colonized them, and created amazing food is not morally equivalent to privileged classes of people today stealing Mexican food and exploiting Mexican workers. For two, while it’s true that stealing Mexican recipes popularizes Mexican food, this popularization for at least 99% of the time is a disrespectful corruption of true Mexican cooking. So Mexican food has been watered-down to suit the tastes of tacky tourists. Am I supposed to celebrate that fact? I think not. Finally, Arellano would have us applaud the serving of crappy food as the “gateway drug” to real Mexican food. Arellano’s reasoning is based on the optimistic and fallacious assumption that the tasteless hordes will get one taste of abysmal phony Mexican food and want to pivot to something more authentic when in fact the evidence proves otherwise. Look at the popularity of Taco Bell, El Torito, and other shambolic soul-crushing food chains and you’ll see that the masses are quite content with eating phony soulless Mexican food and have complete disregard for the real thing. One last thing I must mention is that Arellano's argument is hypocritical and disingenuous. What do I mean? You won't see Arellano eating and praising Mexican food from white establishments or food chains. He himself goes to hole-in-the-walls owned by Mexicans and other ethnic people and finds his favorite foods from these delicious remote places. These are the places he celebrates in his columns. In other words, Arellano can't even put his money where his mouth is. So while I will read Gustavo Arellano’s cultural criticism, I will index his defense of white people stealing Mexican food in my Rejection and Nonsense File.
Your Essay Assignment:
Do you agree or disagree with Arellano's defense of cultural appropriation?
Summary of the Essay's Main Arguments
- We are all rapacious creatures whose drive for success makes us to some degree cutthroat and ruthless. The more ruthlessly we steal a recipe the more we affirm the greatness of that recipe. Mediocre food isn't stolen. Only great food is. The theft of Mexican recipes is a tribute to its greatness.
- "Stealing" is actually the natural human inclination for cross-cultural pollination. Such pollination enriches culture and in many cases actually changes culture for the better.
- To treat Mexicans as helpless victims whose delicacies are being stolen is to patronize them and to "rob them of human agency" (free will). In fact, Mexicans have been "stealing," or rather cross-pollinating, for thousands of years. Their history is rife with taking foods from other cultures such as Spain, France, and the Middle East, and making these foods their own.
- From the Netflix series Ugly Delicious, "Tacos" episode, we find that respectful inspiration from the original dish is an acceptable form of cultural appropriation.
Some Caveats, Stipulations, or Conditions We Can Use from Ugly Delicious, "Tacos":
- Taking shortcuts is an abomination and degrades the original version of the food such as tortillas.
- Offering stereotypes of Mexican food is an abomination and shows ignorance of the depth of ingredients and creativity from the treasures of Mexican cooking. Don't play "Jingle Bells" on the piano when you should be playing Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
- Making tourist food or white-washing food to make it bland for mass appeal will make you money but it is an abomination of authentic Mexican food.
- Taking agua fresca and rebranding it as "spa water" is a form of racial plagiarism so egregious that I doubt Gustavo Arellano would defend such an act of shamelessness and arrogance.
***
***
Review of Arellano's Arguments
- Darwinian argument (cultural appropriation is survival)
- Origin story argument (cultural appropriation is part of the rich Mexican food history dating back over a thousand years)
- Popularity argument (thievery is a form of flattery and affirms the success of the dish)
- Business argument (cultural appropriation is essential for a business to grow and flourish)
- Adaptation argument (Mexican food is popular precisely because the history of Mexican food is the history of adaptation, synthesis, and cultural appropriation)
- Diversity argument (Mexican food is not a monolith; it is diverse, and its diversity depends on cultural appropriation)
What are the two opposing sides of this argument?
The Great Debate: Innovation Vs. Tradition:
On one side, Gustavo Arellano’s side, is the argument that great food evolves through stealing and that stealing is a sign of the food’s greatness. Another side of food greatness is constant evolution and constant innovation. People are open to experimenting with foods and not tied to traditions and absolutes. Mexican food, moreover, is not a monolith. There is diversity based on regions and innovations, so there is no such thing as One Kind of Mexican Food, no One Burrito, No One Taco, etc.
On the other side, the Cult of Authenticity, is the belief that food should be unchanged. Food is iconic and rooted in tradition and attempts at changing the food is equivalent to “blasphemy.” Also, when the food is taken and changed it accounts to the loathsome act of cultural appropriation. Which side are you on?
***
Review of Gustavo Arellano’s Arguments Against the Cult of Authenticity
(Pro Tip: The following arguments would make an excellent body paragraph outline for Essay 4)
- In spite of some phony white chefs who wrongly anoint themselves as ambassadors of Mexican food, mainstreaming Mexican food is on balance a good because it exposes more people to the greatness of Mexican food and encourages cultural respect and cultural celebration of Mexican contributions.
- Much of the purity cult behind the notion of authenticity is from whites on the Left and Right who don’t understand Mexican food or the Mexican people.
- Letting social justice warriors dictate what is authentic can lead to food totalitarianism and absurdly narrow, reductionist definitions of authenticity.
- The lines are blurred between innovation, cross-cultural synergy, and cultural appropriation, which has occurred since the beginning of time and is an inevitable part of how food evolves into amazing dishes.
- It’s absurd to reject Tex-Mex or Cal-Mex food when we consider that these fusions are about embracing the greatness of Mexican cuisine and that no food is good or bad per se; rather, how a chef executes the dish determines whether it’s good or not. It’s all about execution. A bad taco could put you in a bad mood for a week. An exceptional taco could “change your life” and inject your brain’s amygdala with euphoric endorphins.
Counterarguments that challenge Gustavo Arellano’s claim that we should reject the Cult of Authenticity
- Plagiarism Argument: When we steal intellectual or creative property, there should be consequences. We call this type of stealing plagiarism. Students who commit plagiarism get into big trouble. Shouldn’t cooks who steal creatively and in effect commit culinary plagiarism be subject to some kind of penalties? Should not these chefs who engage in stealing or cultural appropriation at the very least be required to ascribe credit to their sources? Should not these chefs who commit acts of culinary plagiarism at least be required to give a portion of their profits to the areas they stole from?
- Moral Argument: Cultural appropriation, the kind where privileged people go to a small town in the United States, Mexico or Latin America and then steal recipes and cooking methods, offends our common sense of morality, fairness, honesty, and justice. When Gustavo Arellano says, “Everybody steals,” and that’s just the “Darwinian” way in the hyper-competitive restaurant industry, could we not accuse Arellano of using a “two rights make a wrong fallacy”? This fallacy is commonly referred to as argumentum ad populum or appeal to the majority fallacy. In other words, just because the majority engage in immoral behavior doesn't make that behavior right.
- Quality Control or “Wannabes” Argument: Sure, Gustavo Arellano points out all these great examples of cultural appropriation, but those examples don’t diminish the exponential growth of phony Mexican restaurants that serve the crassest, disgusting, abominable “Mexican food” imaginable. Violating the Cult of Authenticity comes with a steep price: A bunch of wannabes steal some recipes and think they know how to make Mexican food when in fact what they are serving is an insult to Mexican food and to Mexican culture.
- Grandmother argument: A student told me he had some very mediocre Molcajete at an expensive Mexican restaurant. He told me, “When I visit my grandmother in Guatemala, she makes me Molcajete that blows all the other ones away. I can’t get excited paying premium dollar for a bunch of sad food that goes under the name of ‘Mexican food.’” What this student is saying essentially is that the tradition, experience, and love his grandmother puts in her homemade Molcajete cannot be compared to the vastly inferior substitutes. Grandmother’s cooking, in other words, is an argument for authenticity.
Ugly Delicious, Season 1, Episode 2: Tacos
ChatGPT Outline That Support Arellano
***
Choice B: American Chinese Food
Based on the Ian Cheney documentary The Search for General Tso (Amazon Prime) and the essays “Who’s Afraid of Chop Suey” by Charles W. Hayford, “More Than ‘Just Takeout’” by Cathy Erway, “‘Not Real Chinese’: Why American Chinese Food Deserves Our Respect” by Kelley Kwok, and “Searching for America with General Tso” by Jiayang Fan, write a 1,200-word argumentative essay that addresses the claim that to scorn American Chinese food as a betrayal of authentic Chinese food is an oversimplification that overlooks the complications and contradictions of American Chinese food, which is really a story about surviving racism and xenophobia, overcoming economic struggle, and establishing a strong and pervasive cultural influence.
Building Block 1 for Choice B
For paragraph 1, summarize the reasons American Chinese food is viewed as a betrayal of authentic Chinese food and the authors’ main defenses of American Chinese food.
For paragraph 2, write your thesis, an argument that addresses the assertion that to scorn American Chinese food as a betrayal of authentic Chinese food is an oversimplification that overlooks the complications and contradictions of American Chinese food, which is really a story about surviving racism and xenophobia, overcoming economic struggle, and establishing a strong and pervasive cultural influence.
Building Block 2 for Choice B
Write a counterargument-rebuttal paragraph.
Comments